- As Port Harcourt Refinery Starts Operations
By Kolawole Ojebisi
It appears the oil market has been thrown open to healthy competition with the commencement of operations by the Port Harcourt refinery under the management of the Nigerian National Petrolatum Limited Company (NNPCL).
This is as the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has put out a piece of advertisement asking customers to buy “high quality petrol” from its plant.
In the advisement, posted on social media on Wednesday, the refinery listed the advantages its product has over others they may find in the oil market.
“Buy minimum of 2 million litres of at N970 per litre,” the refinery said.
This development comes a day after the Port Harcourt refinery commenced crude oil processing.
Recall that the state-owned refinery also began the loading of petroleum products for trucks on the same day.
“On Tuesday, trucks began loading petroleum products which include Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol, Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) or diesel and Household Kerosene (HHK) or Kerosene, while other product slates will be dispatched as well,” NNPC said.
In another statement on November 26, the NNPC said the rehabilitated old refinery is currently operating at 70 percent of its installed capacity.
The energy firm said it intends to increase the operation to 90 percent of the refinery’s capacity.
The resuscitation of the Port Harcourt plant happened amid the Dangote refinery’s struggles with getting crude oil for production and patronage for its petroleum products.
On October 29, Aliko Dangote, founder of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), said the refinery had about 500 million litres of petrol, but oil marketers were not buying the product.
Yakubu Suleiman, national assistant secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), in an interview on Arise Television on November 1, said it is more expensive to buy petrol from the Dangote refinery than other places.
However, the association later reached an agreement with the refinery to lift petrol and diesel directly.
On November 24, the Dangote refinery announced a reduction in the ex-depot price of petrol to N970 per litre for oil marketers.
Meanwhile, a day to the announcement of operations by the Port Harcourt refinery, Dangote refinery suddenly announced a slash of N20 from N990/litre it was initially selling to marketers moving the price to N970/litre.
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The Group Chief Branding and Communications Officer of the Dangote Group, Anthony Chiejina, described the development as a gesture of appreciation to Nigerians and the government for their unwavering support.
But it is believed that the move was made to give Dangote product an edge over that of the NNPCL as the management of the Lekki-based plant had had a hint about the Port Harcourt refinery.
